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The Republican Infatuation With CEO’s

It’s funny how candidates who vow to run the government “like a business” always seem to back GOP policies that would run the “business” into the ground and enrich their cronies. Any chief executive who promised to shrink the market share of the company and intentionally reduce the company’s earnings would be laughed back down to the mail room, but the standard conservative tropes of shrinking the size of government and cutting taxes are like red meat to “fiscal conservatives”. Any CEO who ran a company the way candidates like Meg Whitman promise to run government would be a massive failure.

Being a “CEO candidate” isn’t about balancing the books and restoring fiscal responsibility, it’s about making sure rich people get to keep as much of their money as possible, even if it means destroying programs that help children and the poor. That’s how Carly Fiorina did it, cutting tens of thousands of jobs at HP, making the company lose 60% of its value, and securing a $42 million dollar payday for herself. That’s how bank CEOs do it too, bringing the world economy on the brink of a depression, but rewarding themselves with fat bonuses for doing such a great job begging for taxpayer money. CEO’s have a cavalier attitude towards success and tend to take unnecessary risks because, screw it, companies come and go. They get paid either way.

Why anyone would favor this sort of approach to governing is beyond me.